Church Of St Mary

Church of St. Mary

This is a parish church of medieval origin with later additions, constructed in flint with ashlar and some brick dressings. It comprises a west tower, an aisled nave with a south porch, and a chancel with flanking chapels.

The west tower was begun in the second half of the 14th century. It features angle buttresses with chequered flushwork that become diagonal buttresses at the bell stage. A western porch is accommodated between the buttresses. The entrance arch has dying mouldings and a fleuron-decorated cornice with a pair of flanking gargoyles. Inside the porch is an 8-part rib vault with a mutilated central boss carving of the Coronation of the Virgin. The vault springs from four carved corbels. The doorway has undercut floral motifs and salamanders entwined in dying mouldings. A two-leaf door retains 13th-century trilobe hinges. A large three-light Perpendicular west window features an embattled transom. The middle stage has four large three-light blind flat-headed windows filled with knapped flint except for single lower middle lights, which have embattled transoms and quatrefoil upper lights. The top stage contains Perpendicular three-light bell openings. A fleuron-decorated cornice with gargoyles and crenellated blind arcaded parapet with corner pinnacles completes the design.

The nave dates to the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries with 19th-century knapped flint facing. The north aisle contains five two-light Decorated style windows with paired mouchettes alternating with central daggers and reticulating motifs of single soufflets flanked by half soufflets. There are twelve two-light Perpendicular clearstorey windows (plus one in the east gable) with panel tracery beneath shallow heads. The north aisle door was rebuilt from 13th-century mouldings with ten stiff leaf capitals arranged above it beneath a flat hood.

The south aisle has one 14th-century small blocked ogee-headed west window and four restored 14th-century two-light windows with quatrefoil soufflets and ovolo moulded bars. There is also one large flat-headed three-light cusped window.

The south porch features diagonal buttresses and flushwork with a four-centred arch bearing dying mouldings. Small single-light side windows have mouchettes. The original three-bay arch-faced roof rests on carved stone corbels. The south doorway was rebuilt from 13th-century mouldings.

The south side chapel is buttressed and has three three-light panel-traceried windows with a priest's door in the angle between the chancel and chapel. The chancel has angle buttresses and a fine three-light Perpendicular south window. On the north side is a 13th-century plate-traceried two-light window with an uncusped rose and carved label stops. A 19th-century five-light east window is in late Geometric style.

The north side chapel contains a three-light east window with Y-tracery and cusping in lozenge lights only, and a five-light north window with flat head and reticulated tracery.

The interior has a six-bay nave with an additional lower single bay between the chancel and side chapels. The easternmost responds of this bay date to around 1100 and feature paired half-shafts, nook shafts and cushion capitals. They support 13th-century two-centred arches with roll-moulded outer orders. Contemporary circular piers to the west are now incorporated in later chancel arch responds. The 13th-century alternating octagonal and circular nave piers were heightened in the 14th or 15th centuries, re-using the 13th-century arches and capitals. A former roof line is visible on the eastern face of the tower. The Perpendicular moulded tower arch has semicircular responds, as does the chancel arch.

Victorian arcaded fittings to the chancel are in late 13th-century style. The east window retains original rere-arch nook shafts. The dado of the chancel screen survives with spandrel carvings and seventeen painted saints of high quality. A Jacobean western screen beneath the tower arch features massive turned balusters. The 15th-century arch-braced nave roof has single sets of butt purlins. A carved and painted altar table is dated 1622. Some medieval stained glass survives.